Fall Chromies

[SonsofFishes]

Caught up with Stick last Monday bright and early at an undisclosed location . They have recently arrived .
Stick did well hooking them , way-to-go Stick , myself ? no , just a cpl babies lol



Lots of these in the creeks . For the past cpl yrs I was seeing these as little specs but Stick pointed out they`re a certain strain of rainbow , I forget what he called them but I`m sure he`ll chime in on that . I made it out at a diff location the next day and again a cpl little ones but lots of fresh air and excercise .



Lots of time left before the rivers freeze over , hoping for some good fall action .

 

[Wave Runner]

I see @Stick left his renovation tool belt at home.

 

[stomp]

I thought @Stick was only a legend... like Big Foot... hard to get a picture of @Stick in the wild. Well done @SonsofFishes !

 

[Tyler0420]

Nice chrome. I was out last weekend and caught a few. The rivers should be loaded after the rain we just had.

 

[Stick]

I see @Stick left his renovation tool belt at home.

And that's when the fight broke out.

 

[TFH]

Beautiful fish! I may be wrong, but I believe those smaller trout are indeed rainbows that are in smolt stage? Maybe someone else can verify. I'd be curious to know if they are a different strain as I have caught many in the Norfolk streams. This summer me and a friend had caught a few which looked identical but had orange bellies with a white stripe on the edge of their fins. Hybrid possibly?

 

[Josh Roelofsen]

There are many, many strains of rainbow across the great lakes region. They would be impossible to visually differentiate at that stage of life. That size is called a 'parr'.....when a parr loses its vertical bands, turns silver and gets ready to head for the lake the process us called 'smolting'. Those 5-7" chrome fish that have yet to spend a summer in the lake are called smolt.

There are no hybrid steelhead/rainbow in the great lakes with the exception of some cutthroat genes in the St Mary's River. Orange belly/white edge on the fins sounds like a Brook Trout.

Josh

 

[TFH]

Thanks for the info Josh and I appreciate the clarification. The fish with the orange bellies we caught were definitely rainbows. Me and my buddy weren't sure if it was a mutation or possibly a stage during the trout's development. What's weird is we caught a dozen in the same size range but only 2 had the orange markings.

 

[Josh Roelofsen]

I've never seen a Rainbow parr with an orange belly. Orange fins, yes. And a white leading edge on more than one fin 100% indicates a brook trout in our area. Coho parr can have a white leading edge on the anal fin. Brook trout can be quite pale and have similar vertical bars...

 

[TFH]

We caught these in the upper stretches of Big Creek in July

 

[Josh Roelofsen]

Wow! Definitely bows! And pretty fish That's a new one for me! And the leading edge on the pelvic fins is completely white, crazy! I've only ever seen the tips of the fins white on bows.....awesome looking fish! Very Cutthroat like but without the slash of colour under the gill. I'm guessing some domestic genes in there somewhere maybe!?

Josh